Warp World 2010

Jacob Van LunenWednesday, July 15, 2009

ello and welcome to another edition of Building on a Budget. I hope all of you got to make it out to the prerelease last weekend. Prereleases are a great first chance to better understand a new set. I'm still a big proponent of the new rules changes and I'm happy I got to play in my first sanctioned event with them.

Last week I talked about Chris Boomer's Warp World Revolution. I was very happy with the response I got. A lot of you asked if I would further explore the options the deck might have after Magic 2010 replaces Tenth Edition in Standard. For reference, here's the list we ended up with last week:

I'm aware the deck looks completely different, and that's because it is. Magic 2010 will change the metagame a lot. This new list handles a lot of the new changes very well and gives us a good plan against most decks that exist in the current metagame.

Let me explain how I came to these conclusions.

When I first sifted through the Magic 2010 visual spoiler I was smitten with one of my favorite cards of all time, Bogardan Hellkite. The "best" dragon is especially exciting when you consider its applications in the Warp World deck.

Another exciting prospect that was brought to my attention in multiple emails is the inclusion of Wort, the Raidmother as a budget replacement for Siege-Gang Commander. Wort gives us a lot of permanents for our Warp World and it lets us use conspire to make post-Warped games a lot less difficult.

Last week I expressed my disappointment with Nucklavee, and my opinion here hasn't changed much. I feel the card can easily be cut for more effective spells. It really only affected our Warp World. After I cast an eight-mana sorcery I would like to believe I don't need a support spell to win the game more.

Splashing for Mulldrifter was nice, but I always felt like I was giving my opponent a chance to get back into the game when I cast it. Regal Force seems like a much better engine. It makes a body that sticks around to block just about any creature in the format, and it draws us a huge number of cards.

Murderous Redcap seemed fine, but I wanted to maximize my green permanents and Bloodbraid Elf seemed like it was probably a lot stronger in the deck anyway. I'd like to thank Chris Boomer for this idea.

I wanted to see how this deck handled the more popular post Magic 2010 decks. My friend Chris Lachmann and I put together Kithkin, Green-White Overrun, Five-Color Blood, and Faeries and decided to see how the new Warp World deck fared against the most established decks in Standard.

Quick Aside

Last week some people complained that I was acting as a shill when I endorsed the recent rules changes, specifically the changes to combat, and said they put more emphasis on a skill that has been played down in competitive Magic in the past few years. I truly believe that these new rules will make for extremely interesting and skill testing situations in future games of Magic. I strongly urge everyone to actually play a few matches with the new rules before you draw any harsh conclusions.

I remember being frustrated and confused the first time my opponent put damage on the stack and used a pump spell on their own creature. These types of rules are not intuitive and make newer players turned off when they lose to them. The new set of rules may make you lose an edge you had over new players who don't have a solid grasp of the rules, but they create a lot more room for advanced play between two players that understand the rules well enough.

Revolution 2010

I hope all of you enjoyed this week's revisit of an archetype that seemed to be very popular amongst my readers. I'd like to thank Chris Boomer again for starting the revolution. If nothing else. I hope this article gave you some insight into what decks you should be testing against for the upcoming standard PTQs or your Nationals if you've been lucky enough to qualify. I think Warp World has what it takes to cut the mustard in the new Standard. Bogardan Hellkite really pushes this deck into the realm of awesomeness, and I'm glad we can be competitive without breaking the bank. I recognize that this deck costs about 35–45 tickets to build, which is above average for my lists, but the power level of the deck makes it worth the extra investment. Most competitive decks costs a lot more to put together.